Blog

If you've been wondering what has happened to me, I'm still making art. I've been busy working on a number of projects over the past 6 months that's kept me figuratively chained to my desk - one being a World of Warcraft Tribute contest submission presented by Udon Entertainment & Blizzard that I had hoped to submit in January. Because I was working on the Threadless Iron Man submission and not that familiar with the World of Warcraft characters, I didn't get my entry finished in time. As part of my research, I had enlisted the hubby to play some of the game and found myself drawn to Night Elves and their world which is what I chose for my piece. I decided upon a cleric female Night Elf and her Sabertooth mount.

There are still more layers to go and the background is a little rough for my taste but here's a closeup of what is somewhat complete. I'll try to finish it later and post to Blizzard's fan art site.

An elven girl searches a cave looking for a special flower to heal her ailing brother and in using her powers to illuminate the cave awakens a sleeping dragon that has made it his resting place.

This has been the one of the most challenging pieces I've ever done but I think the effort and time was worth it because of all that I've learned through the process. Hopefully it will make future pieces a little less painful. ;-)

This piece has gone through a quite a few revisions to make it to this stage but I think I am finally starting to feel better about the results...or maybe I just want this to be finished so I that can move on to the next piece and in the process save my poor hubby from any more of my outbursts. I think it's about time to start on colour. Did I mention that I don't like working in greyscale? :)

It's been a while since I've posted something and so I thought I would share some closeups of a digital painting that I've been working on, both on and off during my moments of freedom between work and errands for the last few weeks. After watching the movie, Avatar - gorgeous movie, by the way - I was inspired to drop my study of anatomy and lighting for a while to do a piece just for fun! Little did I know that this would become a frustrating yet educational journey into exactly what I planned to avoid: anatomy of a creature (fashioned after a mix of animals) and an elf; and lighting (low light source, argh!). To make it unknowingly more difficult I thought, "Why not do it in greyscale and apply colour afterwards?" At this point I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to introduce colour or what colours I'm going to use but, hey, it's all part of the journey. I do think the piece is starting to come together though. :)